Therion – Sitra Ahra (2010)

The legendary Therion is back with yet another very solid release that will please all fans of Symphonic Metal. As you can expect, Christofer Johnsson  does a great job in creating very epic songs that feature amazing choir sections, brilliant vocal solos, and the overall Therion sound. The only downside of this album is that you get more of the same and nothing else, so if you are a huge fan of the band this will surely please you to no end.

Featuring 11 tracks, “Sitra Ahra” takes you into a very majestic journey into the bands unique world. You will get that the riffing and guitar solos is very simple to what we are used to get from Therion since the “Vovin” album. Keeping things simple and catchy, songs like “Kings of Edom” will greatly made you remember the “Vovin” era of the band. The choir sections of this song are great, and fit the overall pace of the song.

One thing that we greatly appreciate in this album is that the Power Metal singing is less present than on previous releases, allowing us to better appreciate the band’s music and orchestrations. Thomas Vikström is a good singer, but sometimes in the past, we feel that they vocals didn’t quite fit with the symphonic aspect of the music.

Our favorite song of this release is “Hellequin”, a very interesting piece where you have soaring choirs, Power Metal vocals, and some other ‘weird vocals’. While some of the ‘extra vocals’ sound way plan bad, Thomas Vikström delivers a solid wails in this one. The male vocals are also pretty epic and give a very nice ring to this song. The music is fairly standard, with some cool parts, but if you focus on the choir and vocals, you will not even realize it’s there.

Only in the song “The Shells are Open”, we find the band incorporating some fresher elements that make you really pay attention to the song in order to digest it. While we still have the massive choirs, the pace of the song is very interesting. And the Middle Eastern-like opening really makes it different from the rest.

If you are looking for more depth, we can’t really say that we find any on the band’s music since it’s fairly consistent through the album. We won’t say that the album is bad, since Therion has always dominated the Symphonic Metal scene, but a little change might be in order for the band to refresh their very good style. All songs in this release have their moments and are pretty solid, so any fan of the band and Symphonic Metal will find this release very good.

Release: October 26th, 2010

Country: Sweden